It's bad enough for some propeller airplanes to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the skeptics could start having a dig at industrial aircraft flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil air travel market under increasing pressure from increasing oil prices and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to standard kerosene and these up until now seem to come down to numerous kinds of biofuel.

Not surprisingly, the first trials of alternative fuel were started by British air travel pioneer, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic began London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each utilized different blends of regular fuel and bio derivatives including some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil thought about too poor for growing mainstream foods.

jatropha curcas is a genus of roughly 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the very best candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to drought and insects, and produces seeds consisting of 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aeronautical major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation transferred to perform research and advancement into the usage of biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would function as strategic experts for the job.

The newest airline company to start experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has actually carried out internal US flights utilizing a mix of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is declared, can cut harmful emissions by 10%.

One actually encouraging advancement has actually been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers thereby preventing a price spiral. Not so long ago, a rise in use of biofuels in cars triggered a spike in maize prices as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and vehicle drivers will focus biofuel usage on non-food sources such as jatropha curcas and algae. It would be a combined true blessing undoubtedly if some individuals wound up starving just to satisfy another person's green qualifications.